QuickWire: MIT Tries New Approach for Some OpenCourseWare

Call it OpenCourseWare 2.0. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced today a new chapter in its popular effort to offer lecture notes and other materials from its courses free online. When the project started more than 10 years ago, leaders thought the main audience would be teachers and professors who wanted to see how the prestigious institution designed its curriculum. A bigger audience, though, has turned out to be students at other institutions and curious nonstudents, and in many cases they have been frustrated to discover that some courses lack all that they’re looking for, says Steve Carson, a spokesman for MIT’s OpenCourseWare project. Today MIT opened a new section of the site, called OCW Scholar, where courses are fleshed out further for what the institute calls “self-learners.” There are five courses in the section now, and MIT plans to increase the number to 20 in three years. The project is supported by a $2-million grant from the Stanton Foundation.